Tunable lasers may be packaged as a component of an optical transceiver, or may be used in other applications outside of an optical transceiver. Tunable lasers are generally packaged with other components including an electrical interface and an optical interface.
There is an ever-constant challenge in the industry to reduce the size of tunable laser packages, modulation components, and tunable laser transmitters. The reduction in size may allow lasers and transmitters to be used in a greater number of applications. The reduction in size provides numerous design challenges for the package components to fit within the limited space and also not compromise performance or reliability.
In applications in which tunable lasers and transmitters are a component of an optical transceiver, the tunable lasers and transmitters should be sized for use with one of the various form factors. The various form factors provide standardized dimensions and electrical input/output interfaces that allow devices from different manufacturers to be used interchangeably. Examples of form factors include but are not limited to XENPAK, SFF (“Small Form Factor”), SFP (“Small Form Factor Pluggable”), XFP (“10 Gigabit Small Form Factor Pluggable”), CFP (“One Hundred Gigabit Form Factory Pluggable”), ITLA (“Integrable Tunable Laser Assembly”), and the micro-ITLA (“micro-Integrable Tunable Laser Assembly”).
Therefore, while other applications have been directed to one configuration of the tunable laser component, there is also a need for a small, packaged tunable laser assembly for various applications in different configurations and packages.